big island trip!

i just got back from a weekend at the Big Island! this was another trip with the Leisure Center here on campus, which was so much fun as always! we started off the weekend by spending our first night in Kona (the home of kona coffee!) which was a really awesome little town with lots of restaurants and shops to go to! they even had a bench like the one Forrest Gump sat on :)

our first group stop was at Kealakekua Bay, the famous bay where Captain Cook was killed...

then we made our way over to Pu'uhonua O Honaunau (City of Refuge) which is one of the best places to snorkel in all of Hawaii! there were lots of fish, colorful coral, a live reef, and even sea turtles! i never knew snorkeling was so much fun... this was a definite favorite!

here are some of the underwater beauties i got to see :)

there were also some historical sights we got to explore here, such as these sweet tiki's! except that we later found out that we weren't supposed to touch them... oops :/

our next stop was at the beautiful Punaluu Black Sand Beach for a picnic lunch.

i was able to get up close enough to take this picture of a Hawaiian Hawksbill Turtle!

then it was time for the volcano... the main attraction of Big Island! here we are at a steam vent in Volcanoes National Park:

and finally... the only active lava flow on earth! this was as close as we were able to get because of the dangerous health affects the smoke can have...

although the previous picture is pretty freakin awesome, a group of us decided that it was not good enough. so we went back to see the lava around midnight when the coast was clear & the guards were gone so that we could get closer... and it was so worth it.

we hiked about 45 minutes over dried lava that sometimes shattered under our feet until we felt the steam rising from below us. then we reached the edge of the cliff about 100 yards from the volcano where we saw the lava flow right into the ocean. it was the most amazing thing i have ever seen. and i got a picture with it! though it doesn't portray what we actually saw in the least...

after the best night ever, we got up and drove out to the properly named Rainbow Falls:

where we hiked up a trail and found a fun jungle area :)

and then we made another stop at Kaumana Cave, which is actually a skylight in a 25-mile long lava tube that was created in 1881 by a lava flow from Mauna Loa. inside there were really long thin roots hanging from the ceiling all the way down to the floor. it was really wet inside so we would occasionally get hit in the head with a fat water droplet!

this is a picture that we stopped to take during our 4-mile scenic drive. i love it.

and here is the 400 ft Akaka Falls!

we stopped in Waimea Town for lunch... we were obviously worn out from the weekend.

and last but not least, a little Black Sand Beach stop before heading to the airport! i even found a piece of green sand attached to dried lava on this beach (there is a green sand beach in Big Island that we didn't get to see, but still pretty awesome).

and here we loading the plane on our way back to Oahu! what a fabulous trip :D